Butchery in Bosnia Should Stir West : U.N. should pass war crimes resolution

The United Nations is mulling a resolution to set up a commission to investigate war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It had better hurry.

There is mounting credible evidence of mass killings of Bosnian Muslims by forces commanded by local Serb warlords. Washington, after equivocating for nearly two months, now accepts evidence pointing to the murder of thousands of men, women and children near the northeastern Bosnian town of Brcko. Acting Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger urges prompt action on the war crimes resolution. The atrocities against Muslims that are known to have occurred may not yet warrant a characterization of genocide, but certainly the intention behind them appears to.

State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher says a U.S. report on human rights abuses in Bosnia describes “willful killing, torture of prisoners, abuse of civilians in detention centers, deliberate attacks on noncombatants, wanton devastation and destruction of property. . . . “ These are unmistakably war crimes, as the international community has long understood that term.

The Serb minority in Bosnia--it is about one-third of the population of 4.4 million--says it is fighting to keep itself from being submerged in a hostile sea of Muslims and Croats. Aided by Serbia and pursuing a policy of “ethnic cleansing,” the Serbs now control about two-thirds of the country. International efforts to curb the fighting and mount effective relief efforts for the war’s victims have been repeatedly frustrated. Since Bosnians voted almost unanimously for autonomy earlier this year, in an election most Serbs boycotted, more than 10,000 people have been killed, hundreds of thousands have been driven from their homes.

International ineffectiveness in forcing a halt to the butchery in Bosnia represents a staggering political failure. No country that is capable of stepping in, including the United States, is ready to risk the casualties likely to result from military intervention. For now the most that is being considered--and it is still only being talked about--is a possible Western air umbrella to prevent Serbian air strikes in Bosnia. That, we think, is the minimum military step now to be taken.

At the same time the United Nations should move quickly on the war crimes resolution, if only to let those responsible in Bosnia know that at some point they face punishment for their misdeeds. Human rights abuses are a moral outrage wherever they occur. A passive international response to those abuses is shameful and discrediting.